Solunar tables offer outdoor debate

May 18, 2014

Written by

Dick Martin

CentralOhio.com

Many readers, especially younger ones, haven’t heard of solunar periods. But lots of veterans have, and believe in them so fiercely they plan hunting and fishing trips around the periods.

For those unfamiliar with them, sol means sun and lunar means moon. The basic idea is the two together influence animal movements just as they influence tides and other earthly phenomena.

The idea is so long standing that once upon a time Sports Afield magazine published a chart of the tables each two months, showing the two “highs” in each 24 hours — when animals and fish were most likely to be active — and the two “lows” when it was hardly worth the effort.

As a zoologist with a master’s degree from Ohio State as well as a hunter and fisherman, I was once very interested in the solunar periods, enough that I ran a few brief and simple studies. Their results came close to making a believer out of me.

One that I remember well came on an early October squirrel hunt. It was a perfect morning, cool, crisp and sunny with almost no wind. It was the kind of morning when squirrels are out early and feeding.

It was a good woods, too, one I’ve hunted a number of times and always found plenty of bushytails.

But that morning the woods were dead, with hardly a bird call and nothing moving. I quit around 10:30 a.m., went home and called a friend who was hunting that morning, too.

“Did you get any this morning?” I asked.

“Didn’t see a single squirrel,” he replied. “I stuck it out until about 10:30, then quit.”

Another friend had a different story.

“I didn’t see anything until about 11:30 a.m., then suddenly they were all over the place. I got four.”

The table said the solunar period would peak around 11:30 a.m.

On another trip I was ice fishing an area lake, checked the table and saw that the high would come around 10 a.m. I usually have best luck on any brand of fishing in the two hours after dawn, but not that morning.

Then suddenly around 9:30 they started to bite and continued on until 11 before they shut off.

In another simple little study I watched my bird feeder and noticed the bird number seemed to increase around the highs and diminish drastically during the lows.

Did it always work? No, it didn’t. I finally decided that if all factors were stable, no storms moving in, no low pressure fronts, etc. there might be something to solunar tables.

Now, it appears I was wrong and seemingly so were many thousands of others and the inventors of the tables.

In one issue of Petersen’s Hunting, an article discussed in part the tables and told of a study conducted at an Illinois wildlife refuge. The two researchers used consistent methods to study free-ranging deer, songbirds, and semi-captive cottontail rabbits to see if there was any correlation between the sun/moon cycles and wildlife activity.

The pair used tower blinds in high deer density areas and binoculars to map deer activity over a nine-week period.

The rabbits, kept in a three-acre enclosure, were monitored every hour using neck collars, and songbirds were checked at a feeding station.

Their conclusion, after months of analysis and observation, was there were no distinct or predictable patterns in wildlife activity during various phases of the moon. They did note that further study may be indicated, but decided the tables were not an accurate or consistent predictor of wildlife activity.

So, there you have it.

Fishing and hunting trips should be decided by when you can go and if the weather is right, rather than the sun and moon.

I’m still wondering about those squirrels and even why my various dogs got suddenly active and started playing with chew toys at certain times of day.

But science triumphs. Or does it?

Dick Martin is a retired Shelby biology teacher who has written an outdoor column for more than 20 years. He can be reached at richmart@neo.rr.com.